The Other Door
by Coffin Liqueur
Summary: Originally written and posted on AO3 for RE7's third anniversary. Three survivors of the Dulvey incident reflect on what ways they both have and haven't escaped what happened to them.
1. Mia: A Lifespan With No Cellmate

It was far, far from the first time that Mia had woken up warm in a bed of fluffy white linens and cottons, Ethan sprawled on his back behind her in a white satin nightshirt, everything clean and clear and smelling faintly _ sweet _.

And yet done it to the smell of _ mildew _, blinking bleary and dark and shivering at the chill spidering down her back, pressing out a faint moan as she stretched and rolled like a weary, straggly panther to the edge of the bed, tucking her hand in against the edge, reaching out for her phone with her other to check the time.

And heard a thin, high flutey voice somewhere within and behind her ears breathe in a youthfully raspy whisper:

_ Mommy? _

Mia blinked. Looked for the life of her like a raccoon, she figured. She clicked the phone button. Her screen lit up blue and white.

3:33 A.M., she processed with the clearest, most sterile kind of dullness - the ache after a strapped-down routine blood draw.

Not a good time for it to be. Almost to a comical degree, not a good time.

_ ...You didn't kiss me good-night. _

Evie's voice lilted at the end. That sound, that little _ I don't understand _. It sounded taken-aback. It sounded entreating.

That made it easier to defy - push away. It didn't even scare her anymore; turned that uncanny fear into resentment.

_ You never were a little girl. _ Her eyes fell low-lidded. She tapped through her lockscreen. (An internal cringe and a quick suck on the inside of a cheek, as if she was tasting a hint of lemon. The code had been changed when she'd gotten ahold of the phone again, sitting on a table in the Bakers' old waterside house - the run-down one where Mrs. Baker's bugs had nested. She'd asked herself prior to that franticness and petty momentary reality-crossroads with wonder why it hadn't been too waterlogged to function. Since then, before taking it back in for reset, she'd tried to unlock it again - regarded the four blank spaces for numbers that weren't hers with the same old question again.

And then realized the answers to everything in a sudden simultaneous cool pooling and sinking in her stomach.)

_ You were never a little girl, and I knew it from the beginning. _

The previous heat and venom of these patterns of thought had long gone the way of their fear, by now - nowadays, the thoughts and rebukes were more compulsively ritual. The actions of a child who would hold their flashlight around the room, scan it about, and repeat, with a whisper that shuddered the way November leaves rattle, an incantation their parents gave them with which to banish any monsters lurking outside of the beam - and who, as an adult, had come to still recite it to themselves as they stretched out for the night, resting their head on their pillow.

Out of, perhaps, a little burn of heat and exhaust at only their own lingering fear of the dark. Lack of decision _ quite _ between whether it had become a joke now - or whether there was any cause for the lingering compulsion and itch down their spine as they let the old magic words whisper out, and, if there was such a cause, blaming those lurking monsters for creating it. Giving into the comfort of some sort of pettiness, perhaps, in going through the motions of defiance. How-dare-I-need-this.

I-shouldn't-be-scared-of-the-dark.

But-you're-making-me.

Tyrannical monsters.

_ You were never a real little girl. Just some hollow thing that _ thought _ it could use me for love. _

_ I can hear you, you know, _said Eveline's voice right back.

Mia shut her eyes once - hard. In the manner of a faint _ wince _.

And in spite of herself - not worth the energy to withhold on this, she supposed - thought _ I know, Evie. I know. _

She tried not to picture it, and yet she did. Eveline standing at the end of a hallway down her mind - a silhouette in vague darks and pales. Tilting her head.

And asking her why, then, she was still _ trying _ to hurt her feelings.

Because _ I can hear you, Mommy. _

_ I'm _ always _ gonna be able to hear you. _

This chain of not-quite-thought, not-quite-conversation wasn't fresh; it had first played on perhaps the first night after she and Ethan went home. Or the second, or maybe two days before - she only thought that anything that had run through her head while still in treatment "counted" so much, as much as her head and been spinning in a sick and vodka-oily cocktail of lingering sickness and sedative and panic and reconvention in far too many directions until they centered back around an uncorrupted core of _ her _ again. Until she felt entirely like _ Mia _ again.

It hadn't counted until she and Ethan had gone home, because _ then _ , they were supposed to be _ safe _ . And then she had woken up with a start and a rising concentrated chill, like a thin, thin needle had begun injecting something white-hot into the back of her brain, to the voice of Eveline as if directly inside her ear. And had beaten her back with argument away. _ You're not real. You're not there. I'm cured. I got away. And Ethan killed you. _

Making a good point to think, in a pulse, _ you little bitch. _

And got Eveline barely even retorting - simply replying that _ I _ am _ here, though. You can hear me, can't you? _

"That's nice," Mia whispered, dryly. Both had done and did again now, as Eveline tried the very same song and dance again. Delivered as nothing but a breath. Eyes fixed to her phone as she loomed in closer to it. Scrolled with a couple fast swipes.

Popped open a text. It was from earlier that day - or yesterday? Or the beginning of the week? The name above it read "Zoe". Zoe was safe. So was she. So was Ethan. All was good. _ Read the article again - you'll see. Be able to go right back to sleep. _

The Eveline shadow stomped, silently - arms swinging with it, a shadow puppet made of wind - on each sharp emphasis in _ I'm _ not _ going away until you and Daddy _ love _ me! _

Mia stared into her phone reading without parsing. Another move of strictly dull, rote defiance.

Blinked again - slow, feeling the heat under her eyelids; kin to that kind of burn when hold and cold and hot vapors cross.

The Eveline shadow crossed her arms. Swaying from side to side and foot to foot in repetition. Her skirt swayed faintly. (Shadow made out of wind, skirt made out of drapes.)

"We already gave you our answer to that, Evie," Mia said. Expressionless - voice hoarse with wear and grogginess. "Both of us did.

"That's never gonna happen."

_ You said I'm not a real little girl. _ The Eveline shadow's voice thinned and curved and turned again; she took a small step forward, head turning coyly into one more faint _ sway _ of weightless weight. _ I still could be if you wanted. _ The false plaintiveness carving itself out as Evie's words polished sharp like a strategic dart.

_ You could make me a little girl. I wanna be _ your _ little girl! _

The shadow stepped forward again. Her head lifted slightly.

Mia shut her eyes, for a second. Trapping the image nice and clear - light of her phone screened out. Some illusory feeling of _ direct confrontation _ of a situation that didn't exist.

_ Why _ ** _not_ ** _ . _

Eveline took one more pace ahead - catching a beam of imaginary moonlight. Her face lit up pale. Her smile was nasty. Right in line with her lack of a question - it was a sharp little demand.

Mia's eyes fell gravely heavy.

The tension that crept another course down her back and sent a net of criss-crossing lines over her shoulders before pulling was less of a _ chill _ than an _ ache _. She held her breath a moment.

Let it out with a certain kind of weight and a shudder in the space around her lungs.

"It's because we _ hate _ you, Eveline," she said. "...It doesn't _ matter _ that you're not a little girl. It doesn't _ matter _ where you came from. We don't want you, because you're a _ monster _ , and we _ hate you _."

Eveline lunged - one more shadow-shattering step, and in another moment, she was right in front of Mia, behind her eyelids, looking coldly-moon-eyed up into her face. She raised her hand.

And Mia screamed - in a wire-hot chemical-fire _ flare _ of reflex; she leaped back, swatted at the image in a move that hurled her phone to the ground - a _ slam _into the carpeting. Pawing her way backward until her back hit a barrier.

Another flare of shock spiked up her back - sheer reflex again. She turned to look behind her.

Ethan had begun to turn and stir. Arms shifting position in a slow half-stretch; an effortful wince steadily collecting itself in his face as his head turned one way. Then the other. He made a rough hum of noise.

She breathed his name, in a point of exposed, cold suspension. Not sure whether to apologize, or lie, or _ oh, thank god _ and throw herself on down next to him and cling to something warm and sure and _ there _ (from _ that, _ too _ ) _ again - the reminder that they had both made it out, _ thank god, you're here and I'm here. _

He dragged his unscarred wrist over his eyes - pressed another "mmh". Angled his head in her direction, loosely. "Mia?" he breathed back.

Mia held at that three-way point of suspension. One, two, three, four seconds longer. Heart palpitating. "...I-I-I, I'm sorry, sweetie" is what the dice finally rolled, delivered about as certain-sounding and consciously as she felt about it; her face just short of vacant as she shook her head, long black hair waving. Forced out a breath intended to be a laugh; drew up one corner of her mouth. "I - I woke you up, didn't I...?"

Ethan's eyes were open, now, under the shadow of his forearm. On the other side of that arm, she made out his brow tensing.

_ Scrutinizing _ or _ worried? _

One of those palpitations of her heart became a sick, shuddering _ ripple _. Her eyes cast down. Her mouth thinned.

When it opened again, she forced a curve back into it. Dragged the tip of her tongue along the backs of her teeth down into a corner. Poised it there before she curved her voice, too.

Downward.

Guiltily.

"...With how I dropped my phone like that…"

Managing a laugh-like vibration in the middle.

"It was Eveline, wasn't it?" he said. Like it was nothing. Groggy-rough between mumbles.

Another ripple. Her face reset - _ cool _pooling behind it.

He _ was _always a man to get right to the point. Call things out.

It was far, far from the first time she'd had these dreams.

But they came and went.

She never slept _ entirely _ peacefully, but there were weeks where a shadow moving across a wall might simply look like a Molded. Or that _ this phone call - _ this _ phone call is finally going to be the Connections trying to rope me back into the business that nearly destroyed everything, or giving me some _ warning _ that I'm up for a kidnapping and interrogation; they _ haven't _ contacted me, but they're _ bound _ to and this is _ finally _ going to be _ them _ when things are finally going _fine…!

Once she saw that those things weren't the case, her nerves cooled. The memories went right back on the backburner. She still hadn't gotten the cause of these little Evie-visits evaluated, thanks to these periods - hoping each time that they were gone for good, and nobody she spoke to would come away from needing to know the intricacies, the exact nature of her fears about them, in general, knowing _ too much _.

These sights and sounds too vivid in her mind's eyes and ears were happening again for the first time in… certainly over a week. Maybe two. Maybe a month. It was hard to keep track.

And every single time they started to come again, she always tried to avoid talking about them. The specifics, in any case; it was difficult to get away with not so much as "nightmares. Really bad nightmares - I'll be fine, baby." So broad, so understandable, and so _ broadly understandable _.

Sick as it made her feel.

As if she hadn't already lied to him _ enough _about Eveline.

...She really did have it coming that he kind of expected her to now, she thought.

At least there was that.

At least she could write it off as… etiquette between the two of them, at this point. Or just another habit of hers. No harm if she knew he could see through it. If everything was understood.

...The tip of her tongue poised just behind her upper teeth. Holding a spot to say something while frozen.

A beat and a swallow.

" - Yeah," she said.

It husked… half-icy out of her sinuses and head - shaken loose as her head dropped into nodding. "...Yeah. It was her again."

"It's okay."

Plain, husky, and predictable.

Even though it was not okay.

She… didn't even quite hear the statement, as she fell forward into his arms, over herself trying to imagine what he meant by it. When she landed, he pulled her in, and she huddled close to his chest. The faint, bodied and timed yet bodiless and timeless half-sound of a heartbeat.

Warm, and sure, and there.

She could appreciate all of that for what it was because it was all, again, understood. She'd… lied by omission in the past, too, or so she felt - avoiding explaining herself. Not wanting to admit to things, each time they came along.

But no.

Never having explained would've been repeating the same mistake.

She'd asked him by now if he really _ believes _they're both cured.

There was no reason not to, he'd said. He'd seen Eveline die - what else could she possibly do to them? The nausea'd stopped. Their healing rates had slowed back down to natural.

_ I get that it's bad. I get that you're scared. _

_ But they're just nighttime hallucinations, Mia. Not anything to do with her. _

_ I _ know _ you're not gonna hurt me. _

She couldn't know if he really did believe that. She knew she wasn't sure _ she _did. She was the only one having them.

Perhaps _ that's _ why he was so sure they had nothing to do with Evie. Maybe he _ had _had it as bad as her back at the Baker estate. Just for nowhere near as long.

But she certainly owed it to him to trust him.

There was nothing she owed him more.

She finished the fall into it shutting her eyes. Evening her breath.

Counting on the fact that while it was not okay, he understood the risks this time.

The risks of sticking close.


	2. Lucas: Hell Is Empty

Lucas felt nothing.

He hadn't felt anything for three goddamn years.

...Or nah. That was, uhh, maybe _ half _ -true. Or half-true at _ best _, maybe, but still - all the same in effect.

'Cause first year, he was fuckin' pissed a lot of the time! He wasn't supposed to be where he was now, shut up in Umbrella quarantine. Goddamn Redfield was never supposed to have beaten him. He was supposed to have gotten away for once in his fuckin' _ life _.

He don't quite remember when that anger first turned itself into more of a dull _ ache _.

But it feels like a long time ago. Everything feels like a long-ass time ago. 'S how it be when you got to a place where every mother-fucking day has gotten so… _ same-y _.

He sleeps. He barely eats - stupid fuckin' prison-hospital food they give him is all boring as hell, gross, or both; they even went and put him on an IV for that once and he didn't even care, 'least it was something different, but for the most part, he's gotten used to the ache. Peanuts when another part of the routine is gettin' wheeled out for more testing, more samples, more staring at a ceiling for a few hours that's a little different in color than yer cell's while folks root around in your guts like they're playing with damn packaging and ribbon.

They ain't even had the decency to tell him what _ good _they been gettin' out of his keeping the E-mutamycete incubated like a damn Petri dish.

Go fig. No one ever tells Lucas nothin'.

Lucas never gets what he wants.

Lucas never gets just a bit of - _ god-damn _ play room.

And _ that's _the thing.

It don't feel... _ any _ different than it did _ before _ Eveline washed up. Not but for that occasional old-sprain flare of feelin' cheated out of the fact that for a _ while _ , there, there was a _ break _ in all of that shit. He had put in more goddamn effort than he had put into _ anything before _ to try to keep it going.

But now the joy was gone.

The rage had become normal again.

Lucas felt _ nothing _.

Stimulation null.

And that was the only thing - the fact that every-every-every damn thing was so _ mind-numbing _ \- was the only thing he could bring himself to even hate nowadays.

He _ hated _it.

...Wasn't as if he hadn't tried to break up the feeling before, though nowadays it was more token-ly; he'd gotten desensitized to what little hits of joy-juice to the noggin he got out of little rebellions, little "I can still play games and win"s. He used to try singing in his cell nice and loud, for the cameras and mics - sounded like a laryngitic crow, but the point weren't to be good. Sadly, the novelty of that for any purpose but hearin' his own damn voice wore off pretty quick-like with the lack of observable reaction. He used to draw obscene images and write surreal and cryptic threats on the walls for chuckles with the shit he didn't eat, or his own blood, when there weren't nothing else - fuck you, Evie, but also bless you for the limitless supply of free paint and a fully-justified ramped-up pain tolerance. That one was still _ almost _ something - 'least tended to get a few scoffs and sighs. He tried to headbutt and trip the guards here and there when they brought him out for carting off between Point A and Point B, to keep 'em on their toes - give 'em a _ "think fast" _ . _ That _one was probably the most satisfying. Had to be done the most sparingly, though - he only had a blink to pull a move before he'd get a rifle butt to the gut, or a kick to the back of a knee, and find himself quickly a-wrangled.

Got a little bonus there of the indignation of being counter-attacked burnin' up a little harder than the _ persistent _indignation of the situation. That "it hurts surprisingly good" kinda feeling.

Layin' on a cot, eyes duller and darker and more sunken than they'd ever been, his head turned toward the door at hearing those good ol' telltale footsteps in the hall. Pavlovian-like.

...He could do with a shot of that kind of indignation at the moment, he thought.

With nowhere near enough confidence in it bein' strong enough for a sting to manage so much as the most cynical smirk.

...Pffffshhhhh, how sad it was: no matter how great his timing was, by now, all the staff in this goddamn place he ever saw were wary of it as just a thing he does sometimes.

Even the _ guards _were bored of bein' in his damn landscape.

He hauled his ass upright. Stood, kept his head low and his hands up. The door slid open. In stepped No-Name Number #21. These shits all had names. He knew most of 'em by now, technically. Didn't stop it from not making much a difference. Simpler to remind himself half-approvingly that Mr. 21 was one a' the _ boring _fellas. Difficult to get a rise or word out of - any such reaction was gonna be low-key; what satisfaction there was to get out of it was the kinda satisfaction you get in getting one of those British guards to flinch. (Supposedly - he could at this point exhaustedly-as-can-be laugh that it sure didn't seem like he'd be seein' Buckingham goddamn Palace anytime soon.)

"Hey, chief," he forced out narrowly through teeth in a likewise forced, narrow smile - cleanly crescent-curved - before he stepped up behind the guy.

Business as usual, for now. Fella stepped aside. Lucas's smile slackened. Quick side-eye to Mr. 21 before he filed in behind him. Once they both stepped out, up stepped another guy behind 'im.

Lucas took a quick glance back. Mr. 17, he thought, and smiled a bit more firm-pinched, this time. Restful. That guy had a temper - little patience for nonsense.

His brow shot up. _ Smug _. "I keep askin' you boys to bring me a coffee one of these days."

No sell.

No break in stride, no change in posture. On the part of either of the bastards.

Lucas's face flicked neutral for one moment.

_ For the love a' Jesus, _ work _ with me, here. _

One corner of his mouth drew back up - as much out of spite as to give himself something to bite down on, as he tossed his head upward. "You know! To get me ready for another long day a' bein' poked around at?!"

His eyes widened. He showed his teeth down to the gums.

Mr. 17 scoffed; Lucas's nose twitched into a squint.

_ That all I get today, huh. _

"_ Surprise-surprise _ ," said Mr. 17. Smarmily. "If that's the logic you're runnin' on, you won't be needing to fuel up for anything. Not _ yet _today, anyway."

Lucas's brow flitted upward again. He leaned in with another squint, tilting his head - a hard-of-hearing demand.

"They don't need you in the lab right now," said Mr. 21 - Lucas jumped like he'd taken a cattle prod to the back of the neck, spun to un-twist his stance and face him. Guy wasn't lookin' back. "But someone _ does _want to talk to you."

Lucas's nose re-scrunched. Hard. He scoffed into another curl of a smile. "...Still think I'm bullshittin' on me havin' given your higher-ups all the info I damn well _ can _ , are ya?" It was fringed with a touch of gravel. Tired again. A small _ flicking _ shake of his head. "Y'all are overestimatin' how much, aaaaaah, se - _ sentimental attachment _ I had to the Connections."

"It's a personal call. Nobody official. Nobody with us. Nobody with _ your _old people."

Mr. 21 trudged on, and Lucas leaned a tick into looking a _ dagger _ at him again. _ At least look at me. Look at me. _

"It's your sister," Mr. 21 said. "Zoe."

Lucas's jaw dropped open. Soundlessly.

...He scanned the walls around them - mutely checking where they were. Re-grounding. Swore, as his teeth started to lightly, un-smilingly lock, that a bulletin board on the wall weren't on the side that he usually passed it.

He had almost forgotten he'd had a sister, it vaguely occurred to him.

And now he didn't care.

His eyes began to glaze. His steps shuffled heavier; he let his head hang.

Half-honked another scoff of his own. "...Ain't heard word one about her since Mom and Dad's." A re-draw to a quasi-grin. _ Bite _. "What she want with me all of a sudden?"

"You're one of her last living relatives. Not shocking me that she'd have anything to chat about with you."

The bite released. Lucas swayed as he watched his shoes shuffle 'im half-evenly forward down the hall.

"Ask _ her _when we've got you on the line."

_ Last living relatives. _ One damn reminder of the last damn black hole he'd been in.

_ I don't care anymore. Leave me alone. _

Not shocking that she'd have anything to chat about with him _ now _ . After how unbrokenly everything'd been so _ goddamn quiet _ since the plan went under.

_ Good-for-nothing. _

_ I don't care anymore. _

_ Leave me alone. _

Thing 17 and thing 21 stopped him in front of a nondescript door. It opened to a nondescript room that, at the same time, Lucas knew he hadn't entered before. Little in the way of furnishings - a ceiling light, a dirty-white center table, a dirty-white chair. They shepherded him on in to the last one and he couldn't even muster the outward attention to quip or give 'em a dirty look at the jostling.

Just shut his eyes tight over a burst of a strange hot front suddenly blowin' into the front of his brain.

_ Cut it out. No. _

_ I don't care. _

As he sat down, his eyes rolled up to that one ceiling light. As if following particles of dust.

_ Kill me now. _

One of the assholes passed him a phone. He knew it was the phone without lookin'. Fell as heavy in his hand as if it'd been made a' river rocks.

And he continued to gaze dull, empty into that light - blank - as, without bringin' the speaker to his ear, he knew that smoky little voice comin' in across the air as if it hadn't had time to no longer exist.

"...You there, Lucas?" asked Zoe.

And, likewise, as if he'd never forgotten how to tune to respond to it, his voice fluted up high and heady. "Oh, I don't know…!" Eyes rollin' up and up higher likewise. No other change in his face. "_ Am _ I - ?!"

Little crackin' edge toward the end there. Kind of a shock that it was just the one.

"Nice to hear from you again."

She didn't miss a beat. Just ran right into a dull, mumbly little patter.

He slumped forward in his seat. Eyes fallin' to a half-lid.

_ Is it _ really _ , now. _

He propped an elbow up on the table. Levered his arm to bring the phone in, free elbow up and out. "What the hell do _ you _ want."

Uninflected. Congested. Full of dust.

"I-I just…" She paused for just a _ mite _too long. His brow arched - eyes cruised toward the receiver. "...Wanted to see how you're holdin' up."

A little hiccup of a laugh bounced outta him. "Only _now?_" Bit more weight forward on that elbow. Dropped the other, too. Shifted his weight in a side-to-side sway. "You been out there havin' so much fun _livin' your _**_life_** that you forgot'cher big brother's in _prison _till now?"

The curve of his mouth had shaped into a full, wide, half-moon smile, in spite of himself. None of it reached his eyes - gawkin' round again - but still. It was almost as if something interesting was happening again.

How low the bar was.

"Don't take it too personal," she said. A quiet, flat patter again.

Because she just had to go and ruin it, no doubt.

His face re-deadened. A cease to a little wiggle in place he hadn't even well noticed himself picking up.

"'S if there weren't a couple reasons that - for a while, I felt like it'd be hard to talk to you again as it is…" His brow quirked again. _ Don't spare my feelings. _ "...for pretty much all a' the first year, I thought you were dead. The soldier who got me 'n Uncle Joe out of the bayou said he and you had a run-in -"

"Christopher."

"Was that his name…? Christopher?"

"Ee-yup."

Twitched an _ actual _smile for once soon as he heard her starting the name - 's the little victories...

"_ Christopher _ said you had to be, ah… neutralized…"

Aaaand there that smile went. Lucas's fingers began to drum on the surface of the table.

Zoe's voice was darkly-swollen-yet-light and full and turning like a viscous raincloud. "Took me a _ while _ to figure out what happened to you. Where you were. Your name's on a _ tombstone _."

"With Mom and Dad's?"

"Yeah."

Lucas's eyes glazed. Stuck out his tongue and gagged. Didn't care if it was audible or not.

"I don't know," Zoe continued, "if he didn't tell me what was goin' on because he wasn't quite sure what happened to you after that himself, or if it was my fault for assuming that meant you were dead, or - or if he was tryin'a keep me from figurin' out what you may not realize I already _ knew _. In case he thought it'd help my and Uncle Joe's piece of mind."

Brow-scrunch. Eyes narrowed.

His fingers drummed on. One heavy metered roll. Pause. One heavy metered roll.

_ ...Yeah? _

"...You _ weren't _under Evie's control, Lucas."

His eyes began rollin' back up again till he could feel his damn optic nerves stretching; something clouding and atoms buzzin' faster in his chest.

_ Just look at the light, Lucas. _

_ Just look at the light. _

"You hadn't been for a long time," she said.

His lips goddamn _ spasmed _ into movement. " ** _Oooh - ?!_ ** " Nice and round before pulling back into the smile of an animal wantin' to bite. Hard-hard-hard-locked. Much teeth exposed and flashin' under that light as possible. Another bounce of an involuntary, tickling giggle. " _ Sorry _, Mama! Am I in trouble?!"

Deep sway one way. Deep sway another. A minute little cock of his head at the phone.

_ Well? Am I?! _

_ What's your _ ** _goddamn _ ** _ point? _

And there she was still playin' all _ stony _ on him. So _ stony _ so _ serious _ so _ above it all so fuckin' fuckin'fuckin'fuckin'fuckin - ! _

"Just sayin'." Her voice swept. "...That's why I - I wasn't sure how to feel for a while. About gettin' in touch."

He huffed outta his nose into the phone.

And she took a breath in. Out. He blinked.

"I don't know how much a' what you did during that time was to - keep up appearances." Colder. Quieter. "You know - to keep Evie off your back. And… to a certain extent, I - ...think I'll let that be your business."

A sneeze into another twist of his lips into a snarling grin with nose crinkled deep. Eyes flickered aside to the phone again under another lightly-arched brow.

_ You not such a goodie-goodie anymore, Zo'? _

_ Or is this you being a bleedin' heart who just caaaaaaan't be mad at her big bro? _

_ Pick one. _

"_ But _ you tried to stop me from makin' the serum." A hollow-woody under-creak to her tone. He narrowed his lips. Began to lick 'em. Side-to-side. Slow. "You - could have explained, I guess. _ We _ could've tried workin' to escape the whole _ time _."

...Trailed off soft, into something of a whisper.

Lucas's brow lifted higher. Mouth opened - tonguetip still probing at the corner of his upper lip, idly.

"...So why _ didn't _you?"

Glassier than ever, his eyes once again a-sought the light.

_ You bother doing anything with knowin' where I am in three fuckin' years. _

_ And it's a phone call. _

_ ...About this. _

...He stared wider again. As if to trick 'imself into being able to sell any kind of intrigue.

It worked, he thought.

"...Uuuuuuuuhhhhhmmm," he drawled all long, mosquito-like. Pushed it up to a singsong. "...Let's just say it's cause I never liked havin' to move _ my _ plans _ around! _"

The smile that… punctuated that might have been the most goddamn refreshed he'd managed in a while. Brow lifted up high. The drumming passed between his forefinger and pinky as if they were players of a volleyball game doin' headers.

He wheezed one laugh. " - It weren't _ personal _ , or nothing!" Corners of that smile drawin' up higher at the joke. The one inherent in tossing that in there at _ all _ . He shook his head out. "I just ain't never been into group _ projects! _"

The other end a' the line was quiet.

The roofing of his brow begin to lower. Flatten. Screws tightening in the corners of his mouth.

The drumming stopped.

_ ...So there. _

"...Aaaaaaaand I had hell of a lot to get done my own _ way _," he finished. Oily. Ending in a curdle.

Continued silence as his eyes almost started to focus again - nothingness at their corners. Smile beginning to slacken.

A cold, hard stare-off with someone he couldn't even see.

He heard another breath in. Brow tensed.

"You know what, Lucas," Zoe began to say. His mouth just barely-opened. Did he hear a little quake in there…? "I'm gonna take it upon myself to say what I don't think anyone else has ever had the _ balls _to say."

He sputtered through his teeth. Squeaked as his smile twisted back up again, narrow as hell. Felt that cloud of buzzing in his chest again - gathering into a solid, hard enough to ram a man with.

"And that is…?" he said. Scraped across gravel as he leaned into the tilt of his head.

_ This should be goooooooood…! _

She swallowed.

And with that tremor very, very much there, she spoke all slow. Enunciated. Really, really wanted him to hear:

"...You're a very, _ very _hard person to love."

The ram drew into a hook and _ seized _ . He sputtered with a squeak into his hand - bonked himself on the nose. Smile as high in his cheeks as his voice was in the back of his head as he drew his hand away. "You think that's a ** _ballsy _ **thing to say - ?!"

His heel had begun tapping loud on the floor under the table with sudden jaunty bounces of his knee.

_ Whump, whump, whump, whump, whump. _

He flung that free hand up and out. Shook his head in a blinking one-two-three. "Since when ya even _ liked _me?"

"I may not always like you all the time, Lucas, but - "

"Do you like me right _ now?! _"

His face locked like a comedy mask as he pinned his eyes down at the receiver again. No motion but sitting up taller. Looming over the phone.

** _...Well…?!_ **

"...No," Zoe said. Fallin' out along with a sigh. "No. ...I can't say I'm - feelin' especially fond of you right now."

Drier than kindlin'.

Lucas's eyes narrowed. Contentedly. "Tell me how ya _ really _ feel, then," he curdled. An inhale. Piped on out along with an exhale. "'Stead a' saying tiptoein' around it's supposed to be you havin' _ balls _."

"I said you're hard to love. ...Didn't say I don't still do it anyway."

"Horse-_ shit! _ " Pinched through a thinned throat and a deeper bend to the curve in his smile. Bit of an upward-diagonal toss of his head. "...You feelin' _ especially fond _of me right now, or not?!"

She paused again.

And his smile, too, freshly relaxed. Weight sank. He slouched over the table ahead of him. Resting on both elbows. A hunkered down cat that'd eaten the canary.

_ Check. _

_ And. _

_ Mate. _

"...Maybe," she said. Waterier than anything prior. Trickle-trickle-trickle. "...I'll - see about askin' them if I can… speak to you at a time where I ** _am_ **. Feelin' like I like you a little better.

"...Maybe then I can… get you to listen to what I mean."

He open-throat open-mouth coughed. Craned lazy-like away from the phone. "Don't bother with that 'less you got a way of bailin' me _ out _."

And she muttered, again, like a mousy meets a _ liar _, that it was good to hear from him.

He hung up, flung his hands up, and announced that he was ready to go back into the box.

It was a good time and place to. He had gotten one thing he'd wanted: a win.

A win when it was harder than hell to get any kinda entertainment going these days, let alone a game.

...Left a sick, sick taste in his mouth, though, he realized. Layin' back on his cot, staring at the ceiling, eyes beginning to glaze and dull again.

He didn't… get her to say it.

...Was kinda disgusting that nobody ever really seemed to fess up to it. That it didn't make no damn sense to say that you could _ love _ something that you didn't even _ like _ . How were they not the _ same damn thing? _ And the part where it was _ disgusting _ was the way people always pulled out that imaginaryland definition of _ love _ on things that they didn't _ like _ but they fuckin' wanted to _ control _ . Some kind of obligation card, some kind of _ I will bend this thing I hate to my will because I deserve to with how damn magnanimous I'm being in caring about it anyway. _

There was no goddamn _ joy _ in the word _ love _the way he heard most everyone who wasn't himself, he swore, use it.

...He shut his eyes for a second. Crossed his arms behind his head. Took a breath in and held the swell of his scrawny chest.

...Nah, he _ did _get her to say it, roundabout. According to reason. He didn't get her to admit it, but he got her to say it.

She didn't like him.

Therefore, it stood to reason that she did not, in fact, "love" him. Not for real.

...He smiled _ blissfully _for one second. Just one. Felt that bright and quick rush a' freedom in the air pouring back out of his lungs before it immediately faded and grayed. The smile winked back out; turned faintly downward.

Didn't nobody left alive "love" good ol' Lucas anymore. Everyone who ever did was either dead or lying.

Wasn't a soul left who gave a _ damn _.

No more control…

...in a place where chaos didn't do a thing, neither.

He couldn't even enjoy _ that _.

So much for the supposed dead thing, stupid Zoe'd mentioned.

Looks like bein' a dead man, here, came with the purgatory.


	3. Zoe: Coda

There wasn't a soul left in the world who loved Zoe Baker, either.

That thought crept up on Zoe herself, cold, numb, a few seconds after Lucas hung up the call.

Uncle Joe had died not three months ago. While she had cried, maybe she should have been sadder then. May-haps she was just used to losing people now, but he'd gone out the way he'd have wanted to - not peacefully in bed but bravin' a storm.

Then again, maybe that was why she'd felt the need to call.

This time, though, the loss was her fault, and she wondered why she had to go and tell her own brother that she hated him. And yet she hadn't. And yet it sure felt like she _ had _just now.

...Maybe she shoulda been sadder about this, too. She was regretful, sure. She sat down. Dropped her hands into her lap, phone in one, and looked down unfocusedly at them.

No tears, no frown.

Just silence, and glassy-yet-focused eyes still-ly blinking like a cat's.

Retracing the steps of _ why. _

_ Why did I do that. _

...Another slow, steady blink. Another breath she took softly, as if… she meant to be covert with it. Savor that moment of black.

...She'd watched _ All Dogs Go To Heaven _ as a kid. She visualized her self-judgment that way, somehow. The angel whippet opening up the German Shepherd's record and leafing through it, finding no good contained within but letting him in anyway. She was leafing through her _ own _ record, judging herself, feeling more like the judge than the _ judged _. Cold. Like this hadn't quite happened to her.

Lucas had felt rejected, said the guilt. He was _ mad _ that she'd said what she had. He was _ mad _she hadn't known he was alive sooner.

That was part of what made him a _ "hard person to love" _ , probably. It was hard to be _ happy _ with him. He'd always been reactionary - more clear about what he wanted when you didn't give him a thing he _ never asked for. _

Her mouth bent in a little frown at this - her head hung lower; she shook it in a steady, steady, focused weave.

_ Why did you have to go and say that, Zoe. It's all far-off now; you oughta have a clearer head… - ! _

\- She was getting pissed again.

She froze herself. Her eyes reopened dully - a bleary realization. She blinked steadily again. Nodding to herself.

...That was why she'd said what she'd had.

...It had just been entirely 'cause she was _ pissed _.

'Nother nod.

She'd been pissed by his throwing her patience back in her face - _ Christ _ , that she'd offered to write off all the _ death _ in the name of _ "keeping up appearances" _.

...She winced as she gave another nod.

...She'd been pissed by him writing off so hard that he'd played off her trying to show him _ affection _. The one friend she'd grown up with since she'd been old enough to think.

Try to remind him that neither of them either goddamn _ had _ to be _ alone _until now.

...She didn't nod now, on reaching this part.

...She blinked as if to scatter sandman-dust back off her eyelashes.

The next beat of her heart ached. And yet she accepted it for what it was. Her eyes turned back upward from their low drift. She walked out of the conference room with a sincerely-sweeping mutter of "thank you, Christopher" - her eyes swept up briefly to catch the handsome soldier's; he looked for a second as if he felt an old ache acting up, and she lifted a brow momentarily.

As she left the facility, though, she understood that maybe both of them had wanted to be alone.

She still wished she could understand when he first had. She understood, now, her first mistake was trying to appeal to him with a plea for the idea that he never had to be lonely, and yet there he was, wanting to be _ hated. _

Didn't matter how many memories they had together.

Zoe knew Lucas's mind well enough to know that he'd forget 'em as much as he could in order to gain something else.

...And so, once she made it outside the facility, her eyes turned toward the sky.

It was starting to rain. Blank. Thoughtful.

At the roiling gray and blue.

There was - officially - no one left alive who loved her anymore… and that was okay.

Meant any and all sense of home she'd previously had was gone.

...But the whole… damn…

… - _**world**_ was her oyster.

In which to find a new one.


End file.
